4 Jan
2011
4 Jan
'11
10:28 a.m.
Hi Andreas,
Thanks for the feedback, see below my answers.
On 01/03/2011 11:47 PM, Andreas Hahn wrote:
Am 28.12.2010 16:13, schrieb Anca Luca:
I don't know how wordpress is working, I will need to document on that
before I answer this topic.
Hi guys,
Short story:
Where to put the css which is needed by java macros (e.g. the columns
layouting of the container macro)
1/ in colibri.css
2/ in a .css included on demand by the macro
a) from platform resources (using ssfx)
b) from the jar (using ssrx)
c) from an object in a page with ssx
3/ refactor the skin concept and create a 'platform css' to store all
these and not be affected by skin customization.
Long story:
I can see I've caused the web standards tests to fail for the trunk
(http://hudson.xwiki.org/job/xwiki-product-enterprise-tests/org.xwiki.enterp…)
because of the inline style attributes used by the columns layout of the
container, whijch is now used on the main page.
Now, I would like us to agree about where to store the styles needed by
the java macros to work right, such as the container macro with columns
layout. The options I see are:
1/ as until today (e.g. box macro, warning, error, info, etc), in
colibri.css/toucan.css/otherskinwehave.css. I don't like this solution
too much because it means that when another skin is used, things won't
work anymore unless the person writing the new skin takes care of
copying all these "things that must be there". The advantage of this is
having a single .css file to load on page load, the disadvantage being
that their css is loaded on all pages, regardless of it being used or not.
2/ loading of the styles on demand, each macro loads its style when it
needs it
a) from a .css file located in the platform resources, which the macro
has to include using the ssfx plugin when is executed -- much like a
wiki macro would to with a ssx.
b) from a .css file located in the macro archive (using ssrx), which the
macro includes when executed.
c) from a ssx page
c) has the advantage of being very very much more easy to change than a)
and finally than b) which is the hardest to customize. But on the other
side c) means the java macro depends on a page, which is not that good.
Note that "cascading" customization is possible for all these choices
(adding an extra css with rules to overwrite the rules in the default
css for the macro) and that in my view, it's enough, since the idea is
that the layout should be preserved no matter what (e.g. a user might
want to add a red border to the columns, but not make the columns
display as two paragraphs instead of two columns).
3/ refactoring the whole skin thing and creating a "platform" css, which
contains things that should work regardless of the skin used. Pros: it's
an adaptation of the current approach (1/), that solves the problem.
Cons: takes longer, might be very hard to separate what's platform and
what's skin.
These being said, I think I prefer 2/ if 3/ is not realistic, and for
the container macro at least, I would prefer to implement 2b).
Thanks,
Anca
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Hi devs,
as an Xwiki user for about 2 years I'm not so deeply familiar with all
the nuances of styling capatibilities - ssx ssfx ssrx and all the like.
However this is an important topic and I would very much like to see
that XWiki would move toward a styling architecture comparable to that
of wordpress and other popular 'social publishing' tools so that it
becomes easier to customize the look and feel of a site.
I am aware of the contradiction between either offering components that
are fully self supported - meaning macros and style bundled somehow
together - and offering flexible code templates with separate styling (css).
As an example the ColumnMacro and its successor: the Container macro.
Both are IMHO a misconception leaving out the obvious solution.
The colum macro (java) is limited as it uses hardcoded inline styles.
There's an issue opened about that (XWIKI-5843 iirc), which I am trying
to find the correct solution to with this thread.
This makes almost any useful layout modification
impossible - ok you
might rewrite the .jar but that's beyond what most people are capable
and willing to do.
Now, the container macro and its predecessor, the column macro, are just
"shortcuts", if you want, to make the layouting functions more
accessible to normal people. As a developer, you can _always_ use:
(%class="mycontainerclass"%)(((
my container wiki syntax content
)))
and the HTML result will be a div with a class on it, surrounding the
content. Then you can style that in absolutely any way you want. The
container macro is doing nothing different from that (still using groups
with html attributes), but it's providing it out of the box. The snippet
above is equivalent to:
{{container cssClass="mycontainerclass"}}
my container wiki syntax content
{{/container}}
Still, one should never use this second method just to put a div with a
class around the content, the group does that job perfectly without the
overhead of a macro execution.
The idea of the container macro is that it would allow to add decoration
such as layouting, borders, and others for users which have no clue
about what CSS is or what a HTML class is. Users that is, not devs.
Same with the container macro: To modify the Layout
you should really
write an implementation of LayoutManager ?
Someone must be kidding there - that's total overkill.
No, you shouldn't _really_. That's just a method to allow developers to
provide a layout to users. That is, a dev writes a layout, gives it a
name (say "grid") and then the users can use it with that name. There
are of course, various alternative methods to do that: you can just tell
the users to put a specific value in the cssClass, but as I said above,
the idea of the container macro is to make it feel normal and natural
for simple users.
Why not just pass a parameter - say cssClass to such a macro (as it is
the case with other macros) for example the 'box'-macro. That's useful
because it can be easily customized and you can provide an own class
name and associated css.
It has it now on trunk (will be released with 3.0M1), because it's
generally a good idea to allow the container to have a css class (to
make life a little easier for devs) -- and because I needed it for
another macro that extends the container.
IMHO it would be much more benefical if there were a
style guide for
writing macros or templates making a small set of parameters mandatory,
for example the 'cssClass' and maybe an 'id' parameter.
That's not necessarily realistic as cssClass makes sense only if you
have a toplevel element in the macro to put the class on. That's not the
case, and we cannot make it mandatory, there are enough macros which are
not about layout.
So if the parameter is not supplied you might go ahead with some
internal or bundled styling (a default .css file) otherwise it might be
overridden.
I think there is a general risk thats XWiki is falling behind other
platforms because of the lack of design standards allowing designers to
customize solutions in terms of look and feel.
Don't get me wrong - I do like XWiki and its concept much - what worries
me is that it is simply too much work to customize a site design that
compares favorable with wordpress sites and others.
I would be very interested in your usecase: what kind of layouting
customization are you approaching and how and where do you feel that
XWiki is "staying in your way"? It would be really great if you could
send us a little story about that.
Thanks a lot,
Anca
regards
Andreas
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